When she feared her knees would collapse beneath her, he bit her other cheek and turned her around before him. The slight sting combined with his caresses had her biting her lip to contain a moan. He held out his legs, and as she finally removed his breeches, his hands fondled her breasts. Her breath came in gasps. She ached to drag him onto the bed.
A glance showed her he was ready, too. When he held out his hand she took it, surprised to find he’d placed a small object in her palm. “Come, Princess. I believe I shall enjoy my bath with scented flowers after all.”
She opened her hand and gasped at the exquisite emerald necklace he’d placed there. “This is lovely.”
He spun her around to look into a small circular mirror mounted in a metal case and made of polished glass. “’Twas my mother’s jewelry. I thought ’twould complement the shamrock that reminds you of home. Wear it for me during our bath?”
She lifted her hair, expecting him to place the necklace around her neck. But first he nibbled and kissed the sensitive valley of her neck, his warm breath making the small hairs there prickle.
In the mirror she caught sight of her face, flushed, dreamy-eyed, wanting. Just as his hardness complemented her softness, his swarthy skin next to her fair flesh seemed a perfect contrast.
Finally he placed the emeralds around her neck, centering the shamrock necklace in the middle, and tears brimmed in her eyes at the thought of leaving him. When the clasp clicked, she brushed the thought away with a determined sigh. Memories of tonight would have to last, and she was determined to savor every delicious moment.
She started to release her hair from where she held it on her head when he murmured in her ear, “Hold still.”
Feeling wicked and wanton and wonderful, like the most desirable woman in the world, she posed for his pleasure. He raised his hands from beneath her arms and cupped her breasts, his thumbs flicking the nipples while his lips continued their exploration behind her ears.
She licked her dry lips, determined to end this wonderful torment so she could catch her breath. “Perhaps you do not need a bath.”
He tweaked her nipples, shooting a flame straight to her belly. She gasped, the tension inside her so taut she was ready to explode. As if sensing she couldn’t take much more of his teasing attention, he again took her hand and led her to the tub. From the sweat trickling on his brow as he stepped in she guessed prolonging their union was as difficult for him as it was for her.
“Close your eyes,” she ordered, her voice shaky. With his hands and lips no longer upon her, she regained enough composure to lift a bucket of water over his head and douse his hair.
Strongheart closed his eyes, reluctant to lose sight of her. As her hands scrubbed his head, he realized how much she meant to him. He adored her wild beauty, but he’d met many beautiful women in his travels. It was her courage and passion he admired, the way she threw her whole heart into everything she did, giving of every part of herself. When he demanded more, she gave him that, too.
She rinsed his hair, and as her hands boldly played across his chest, he realized what a treasure he had found. He would have wanted her without her dowry, without her title. She explored further, and he opened his eyes to catch the mischievous grin on her face. He sucked in his breath when her hands closed around his erection. As her soft hands soaped him, his thoughts skittered, and he emitted a soft groan of approval.
She leaned forward to kiss him, her hands continuing to caress him. While he ached to pull her into the tub, he couldn’t wait another moment to have her. But when he raised his hands to scoop her into his arms, she playfully nipped his shoulder.
“That hurt,” he complained, more wounded that she’d stopped him than from any lingering pain.
“’Tis your turn to hold still,” she demanded, her lips coming down on his, preventing any further discussion.
She tasted of wine, and the flavor intoxicated him. Her tongue moving in conjunction with her hands was almost more than he could bear.
Standing in the tub, despite her protesting gasp, he lifted her into his arms. Without bothering to dry himself, he carried the giggling woman to the bed.
“Did you not like my caresses?” she teased with an impudent grin.
For an answer, he swatted her bottom lightly after placing her on the bed. She rolled to her back and reached for him, her gaze hungry. “I want you.”
He stood over her, admiring the firelight dancing on her fair skin, the lovely curve of her rosy-tipped breasts, the delicious roundness of her bottom. “Do I not always give you what you want?”
“Eventually.” Her lips rose in a pout. “You make me wait.”
“’Tis proper for a woman to wait on a man,” he teased, running a finger from her chin, between her breasts, and through her curls until he found the raised nubbin of her desire.
She was more than ready for him, her hips lifting to urge him on. He almost gave in to the need to have her now. Only the utmost control allowed him self-restraint.
“Hold still,” he ordered once more.
Dara gasped at the golden glow of passion flickering in his gaze. As his fingers, light and painfully teasing, worked their magic, she tried to remain still. But it was impossible. A tiny whimper came from the back of her throat.
Lunging to pull him down with her, she seized him, frantic to have him inside her. When he entered her, she felt as if she’d been hit by lightning, and her heart pounded with thunder. She clutched the hard muscles of his back. His chest against her breasts spread fire, searing her with unimaginable bliss. She arched her back and exploded, sounding an outcry of delight as pleasure radiated outward.
With head thrown back and muscles clenched, Strongheart followed her with a roar of pleasure.
“I love you.” She pulled him closer, reveling in the feel of his pounding heart against hers. As her breathing returned to normal, she hoped he would remember her words. Hoped he would one day forgive her for what she was about to do.
He smoothed her hair off her forehead. “When do you wish to marry?”
Her glowing happiness faded. The thought of setting a date for the wedding, knowing she would not be there, brought a throbbing tightness to her throat. “Tomorrow. We can discuss our wedding tomorrow.”
Snuggling against him, she breathed in his luscious male scent, trying to memorize him for the time they would be apart. He pulled a blanket atop them, and one by one the candles flickered out.
Soon he breathed deeply in sleep, and still she stayed by his side, a heaviness in her chest. The minutes to her departure flew by all too quickly. Finally, her face tight with emotion, she swallowed the lump lodged in her throat, forced herself out of bed. Shivering, she dressed, longing for one last kiss, but not daring to take it for fear of waking him.
He would have to guess at the reason for her disappearance, and that pained her more. If she knew how to write, she would leave him a note. But such written knowledge was for monks, and she’d never learned beyond her artistic drawings. She dared not trust anyone with her secret for fear they would wake her father or the Norman. She could not risk anyone stopping her. Perhaps she could send a message before they crossed the Irish Sea.
Her gaze clouded with unshed tears as she looked back at him one last time, biting her lip to control her sobs, touching the necklace to give her strength. Would she ever see him again? If she did, would he still want her?
Now that she’d found her love, walking away was much harder than she’d ever thought. A deep, biting loss beyond tears gripped her. Careful to open the door slowly so it wouldn’t creak, she slipped out of the room.
“Good-bye, my love.”
Chapter Seventeen
STRONGHEART slept deeply and awakened refreshed. He reached across the mattress for Dara and discovered she wasn’t there, and he assumed she was visiting her father.
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br /> Using a basin of cold water, he washed, then dressed in a long-sleeved overtunic and mantle to chase away the morning chill and entered the main hall, his stomach rumbling. The scent of a rasher of bacon and fresh breads led him to the trestle table where he ate quickly, washing down his meal with ale.
One by one, Gaillard, DeLacy, and Conor joined him, but Strongheart saw no sign of Dara. With a frown, he turned to Gaillard. “Have you seen Sorcha this morn?”
His squire shook his head.
DeLacy set down his ale and tilted back his chair with a satisfied belch. “The ladies prefer the gardens to my company. No doubt you will find them there. But first, we must make arrangements. I have sent messages to a few friends, and word will spread that we are hiring mercenaries.”
Strongheart frowned. “You did not tell them of the mission?”
“I saw no need,” DeLacy replied.
Conor thrummed his fingers on the table. “How long will it take for these men to gather?”
“A few weeks for an advance party,” DeLacy told him. “Maybe months to assemble a sizable army.”
When the knights finally arrived with warhorses, armor, and equipment, Strongheart needed to be prepared to transport them. A few hundred knights would be a considerable force in Eire, especially against men without armor.
“We must retake Leinster before winter,” Conor said.
Strongheart more than understood the king’s impatience to return to Eire. But haste would not serve them well. As the men planned the details of their campaign, a scribe wrote their final decisions in a ledger. “Each knight will arrive with several mounts and limited supplies. We will need food for men and their horses, arrows, extra swords, and shields.”
“Since there are to be no ransoms, no booty to be won, money payments must be prepared,” DeLacy reminded Strongheart.
Wishing the planning and preparations over so they could be on their way, Strongheart reined in his impatience. Many a campaign had failed due to lack of forethought. “Each knight will fix his own rate of pay.”
Although anxious to find Dara, for Strongheart thought it odd she still hadn’t appeared, he remained with the men, determined to settle the details. “Our most vulnerable point will be when the ships land.”
“Not necessarily,” Conor contradicted him. “There are many desolate bays along the coast. If luck is with us, we could arrive unnoticed.”
They spoke through midday, and finally Strongheart could not sit for another moment. “I suggest we adjourn for the day. I still must arrange for payment to be brought here.”
The journey to his buried gold and silver was a two-day ride, one he intended to make with Gaillard, but first he would seek out Dara. Rising to his feet, he stretched the kinks from his back, eager to stretch his legs.
“If I had such a comely maid interested in me,” DeLacy teased, “I would hurry off, too.”
Conor ran his hands through his gray beard. “’Tis not like Dara to disappear while a battle is being planned.”
“Your daughter listens when you talk of war?” DeLacy asked, his voice rising in obvious amazement.
“She usually insists on riding with us,” Conor added.
DeLacy’s jaw dropped. Never before had Strongheart seen his friend speechless. But Strongheart was too concerned by Dara’s absence to enjoy his friend’s astonishment. He and Conor exchanged worried glances.
Strongheart headed toward the drawbridge. “Check the keep. I will search outside.”
His first stop was the stable. No one had seen her this morning. About to search elsewhere, he slowed when he overheard stableboys talking about two missing horses.
“Were saddles missing?” Strongheart asked.
“No, sire. Strange, is it not?”
Who else would take a horse without a saddle? No one. Damn her! She should know better than to ride off in a strange land with probably only Sorcha for company. While she could protect herself with her dirk, she was no match for a contingent of men.
“When did the horses disappear?” he asked, reining in his temper so not to frighten the lads.
The shorter lad piped up, “Near as I can guess, ’twas the middle of the night, my lord.”
Damn it to hell! Had Dara made love to him then crept from his bed? Thinking back to last night, he realized how odd it was that she hadn’t questioned him about using Norman knights in Eire. Instead, she’d seduced him. The subject that had so upset her earlier had not come up.
With a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, he continued his search. No one had seen her. She had not broken the morning fast.
He searched the elaborate garden, calling her name, but the sound echoed as hollow as his heart. She’d made love to him with frenzied abandon. Told him she’d loved him. Left him. Had her act of love been a ruse to allay his suspicions?
Suspicion of what? What could she be planning that she needed to steal? Obviously she was up to something of which he would not approve. Heaviness settled in his chest, and he broke into a run along the garden pathways. If she and Sorcha had left last night, even if he could guess where they were headed, he might not catch them.
Dara knew no one in Wales, so where could she have gone? His heart slammed into his chest, and he skidded to a sudden halt. With his gut churning, he clenched his fists, unable to draw in air. His thoughts raced, suddenly certain she could have gone to only one place.
Eire.
His anger layered with fear for her safety as he spun and headed back the way he’d come. She was gone. And she’d taken everything he’d pinned his hopes and dreams on. What was worse, if he could only have her back safe with him, he’d capitulate and agree to train the Irish men into knights—even if it took years. But it was too late. She had left him.
He questioned everything he most valued. What good were his warrior skills without her to come home to? What pleasure would winning Leinster hold without his feisty woman? Without her by his side, his life appeared bleak, his hopes for a home in shambles.
He gave up the useless search in the garden and met Conor by the stable. One look at the dejected king’s face told Strongheart, somehow, that her father knew she was gone.
“Did you argue?” Conor demanded.
Strongheart steeled his face not to show the emotion roiling in him. “The lass would not run due to a simple argument. From the beginning, she refused to accept we needed Norman knights to hold Leinster. When she learned our plans, she ran.”
“To Eire?” Conor guessed. “To avoid your marriage?”
The air around them was foul with odors, but then so was Strongheart’s mood. As one thought after another hammered him, he called himself ten kinds of a fool. Was she running from him? Possibly. “Or is she running to Eire to marry another?”
Putting aside his sorrow, fresh anger at her betrayal surged through Strongheart. She should never have put herself in danger. It was bad enough she travelled with only her maid for protection. But must she go riding straight to the enemy, too? “Where would she go? Surely, she wouldn’t return to MacLugh?”
“She despises MacLugh, but she might marry him to avoid war,” Conor admitted, a harried look on his face.
Strongheart wasted no more time. He sent riders to the port in case Dara hadn’t already sailed. But she’d had more than enough time to escape.
They finally decided that Conor would take his men back to Eire and look for Dara while Strongheart raised the Norman knights. With Dara gone, Strongheart intended only to wait for an advance party before setting off behind them. Meanwhile, he would wait for a message from Conor and try not to think of her. But she invaded his every waking thought, and when sleep finally claimed him at night, she haunted his dreams, memories of the short time they’d had together tearing at him.
Recollections of her long red hair c
ascading across the sheets taunted him. He ate what was put in front of him, but it was Dara’s sweet lips he tasted. It tore at him that he might never again have her in his bed, her beautiful legs around his waist, his hands tangled in her silky hair.
A wave of longing hit him, surging with the breath he needed to take. Sweet Jesu! There were so many things he wanted to do with Dara. He wanted to have children together, a red-haired daughter like her mother, a son that had a childhood before he became a man. But there was only one thing that really mattered. He wanted all of Dara’s heart before she gave it to another.
THE JOURNEY TO Eire had been tiring, but Dara, traveling in boy’s attire and as Sorcha’s son, welcomed her weariness. Instead of thinking about the man she’d left behind, she concentrated on their next move.
They’d debarked with their mounts from the long clinker-built ship when it was drawn up onshore above the waterline and into a ditch behind the security of an earthen bank beyond. Small encampments dotted the landscape before them.
Dublin was the largest of the settlements and where she hoped to find the Ard-ri. The Norsemen had long ago established bases on Eire’s coasts for their incursions into the interior. After they’d built and fortified the town of Dublin, named for the dark waters of the Liffey which passed north of the original settlement, the Vikings had stayed. Just as the Normans would stay if they gained a foothold.
Once Dara and Sorcha rode inside the city, there were no large open spaces, reminding her more of the towns she’d seen in Britain than the fresh, clean air of Leinster. Though most of the houses were built of clay and wattles, some were stone, and it was to one of these that they headed.
Many years before, her father had built the city house for her mother, who’d enjoyed the bustling markets. After her mother left Conor for the Ard-ri, her father had seldom returned, finding the reminders of his first wife too painful. But Dara had visited several times and knew her way through the twisting streets.
As they rode through the city, Dara wriggled her nose at the foul odors. Horse manure dropped to the narrow dirt roads, mixing with rotten food, and the stench made her glad they had not eaten yet today. Children played tag, ignoring a fly-covered dead swine in their way. She tried not to cringe at the many little children with festering sores, the eye disease in another, or the boils on still another, and wondered if the lack of cleanliness had something to do with the rampant diseases.
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